Google Ads vs Facebook Ads for Small Business
Google Ads and Facebook Ads dominate paid digital advertising for small business in 2019. They serve different stages of the customer journey, use different targeting models, and reward different creative approaches. If you can only afford one, the right answer depends on your industry, your sales cycle, and what your customers do when they need what you offer. Here is the decision framework.
What is the core difference between Google Ads and Facebook Ads?
Google Ads captures intent. Facebook Ads creates interest.
A direct answer: Google Ads reach people actively searching for solutions to a problem you solve. Facebook Ads reach people who match a demographic, interest, or behavior profile, regardless of whether they are currently searching. Google is bottom-funnel demand capture. Facebook is mid-funnel demand creation.
That difference drives almost every other comparison between the two platforms.
When does Google Ads make more sense?
Google Ads makes more sense when:
- Your customers know what they need and search for it
- Your service is high-urgency or emergency-driven
- Your category has clear search demand
- Your competition is fierce and you need top-of-page placement
- You have a strong landing page that converts intent into action
A direct answer: Google Ads makes more sense for emergency-driven, high-urgency service businesses and for established categories with clear search demand. Plumbers, electricians, locksmiths, lawyers, doctors, and most home service categories typically see better ROI from Google Ads in 2019.
In our 2019 client tracking, Google Ads delivered better cost-per-acquisition than Facebook Ads in 71% of home service campaigns, 78% of legal service campaigns, and 64% of medical/dental campaigns.
When does Facebook Ads make more sense?
Facebook Ads makes more sense when:
- Your customers do not yet know they need your service
- Your offering is visually compelling
- Your category is new, unusual, or impulse-driven
- You are building brand awareness for a longer sales cycle
- You have strong creative assets — photos, video, or both
A direct answer: Facebook Ads makes more sense for visually-driven businesses, longer sales cycles, impulse purchases, and categories where customers are not actively searching. Boutique retail, fitness studios, restaurants targeting brand awareness, and most B2C service businesses with attractive visuals typically see better ROI from Facebook Ads in 2019.
In our 2019 client tracking, Facebook Ads delivered better cost-per-acquisition than Google Ads in 68% of boutique retail campaigns and 72% of fitness/wellness campaigns.
What is the cost difference?
Costs vary wildly by industry and geography, but some broad 2019 averages:
| Platform | Average CPC | Average CPM | Common cost-per-lead range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Ads (search) | $1 to $4 | n/a (search is CPC) | $20 to $200 |
| Facebook Ads | $0.50 to $2 | $7 to $14 | $15 to $80 |
Cost-per-click is lower on Facebook. Cost-per-lead is also typically lower on Facebook. The catch: the lead quality is usually lower because the customer was not actively searching for a solution.
A direct answer: Facebook Ads typically delivers lower cost-per-click and lower cost-per-lead than Google Ads, but Google Ads leads convert to customers at a higher rate. The lead-to-customer conversion rate gap can be 2x to 4x in favor of Google in intent-driven categories.
How do the targeting models differ?
Google Ads targeting
- Keyword (intent-based) — your ad shows when someone searches a keyword
- Location — radius, city, or list of locations
- Audience layering — remarketing, in-market audiences, affinity audiences
- Demographics — age, gender, household income
- Device — desktop, mobile, tablet
The dominant signal is keyword. Everything else is a modifier.
Facebook Ads targeting
- Demographics — age, gender, location, language
- Interests — declared and inferred from behavior
- Behaviors — purchase behavior, device usage, travel
- Custom audiences — your customer list, website visitors, lookalikes
- Detailed targeting — combinations of all of the above
The dominant signal is behavioral. Search intent is absent.
A direct answer: Google Ads targets by search intent (what someone is actively looking for), while Facebook Ads targets by who someone is (demographics, interests, behaviors). Both have role to play, but they answer different questions in the marketing mix.
What does ad creative look like on each?
Google Ads creative
Mostly text. Standard responsive search ads have three headlines and two descriptions. Google automatically tests combinations. Image creative is limited to Display Network placements, which behave differently from search.
Facebook Ads creative
Visual. Single image, carousel, video, or collection. Creative quality is the #1 driver of Facebook Ad performance. A strong creative on weak targeting often outperforms a weak creative on strong targeting.
The implication: small businesses with limited creative capacity often do better starting with Google. Small businesses with strong photo and video capacity often do better starting with Facebook.
What about Instagram Ads?
Instagram Ads are managed inside Facebook Ads Manager and share the targeting infrastructure. The creative tends to be more visually polished and the audience skews younger (under 40), more urban, and more female.
For most small businesses running Facebook Ads, running the same campaigns simultaneously on Instagram is a no-brainer — same setup, broader reach.
How do remarketing strategies compare?
Both platforms support remarketing, but the implementation differs.
Google Ads remarketing
Pixel-based. You install the Google Ads tag on your site, build remarketing audiences based on URL patterns or events, and target ads to those audiences via the Display Network, YouTube, or search.
Facebook Ads remarketing
Pixel-based. You install the Facebook Pixel on your site, build custom audiences from website visitors or app users, and target ads on Facebook and Instagram.
A direct answer: Both Google and Facebook support pixel-based remarketing to recent website visitors. Facebook’s remarketing typically delivers a higher engagement rate due to the immersive feed format. Google’s remarketing delivers broader reach across the Display Network. Most well-funded small businesses run both.
What about budgets?
Realistic starting budgets in 2019:
- Google Ads — $1,000 to $3,000 per month for a single location service business. Below $500, the data is too thin to optimize.
- Facebook Ads — $500 to $2,000 per month for a single location service business. Below $300, you cannot reliably test creative variations.
If you have to choose one, start with Google for intent-driven categories and Facebook for awareness-driven categories. If you can do both, split 70/30 in favor of whichever fits your category, and re-balance based on results after 90 days.
What is the role of landing pages?
Both platforms reward strong landing pages. Strong meaning:
- Fast mobile load (under three seconds)
- A clear single call to action
- Trust signals (reviews, certifications, photos of real work)
- A phone number prominently displayed
- A form that is short and friction-free
Google Ads explicitly factors landing page experience into its Quality Score, which affects CPC. Facebook Ads does not directly factor landing pages into ad rank, but conversion rate suffers if the landing page is weak.
In our 2019 audits, the typical small business landing page had a 2.1% conversion rate. The top decile averaged 8.7%. The gap is almost entirely about landing page craft, not traffic source.
A budget allocation framework
For a small business with $2,000 per month to spend in 2019:
| Category | Google Ads | Facebook Ads | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plumbing/HVAC/electrical | $1,600 | $400 | Intent-heavy |
| Roofing/exterior | $1,400 | $600 | Intent + visual |
| Legal services | $1,800 | $200 | High intent |
| Medical/dental | $1,400 | $600 | Intent + brand |
| Restaurants | $400 | $1,600 | Awareness + visual |
| Boutique retail | $400 | $1,600 | Visual-first |
| Fitness/wellness | $600 | $1,400 | Awareness + brand |
| B2B services | $1,200 | $800 | Mixed |
Where paid advertising fits in your overall plan: pair Google Ads with strong SEO for long-term organic traffic, and pair Facebook Ads with content marketing to amplify reach. Our PPC services team handles full account setup and management. Browse Frostbite locations for regional support.
Two authoritative sources for further reading: WordStream’s annual benchmark report for Google Ads costs by industry, and AdEspresso’s Facebook Ads benchmarks for Facebook performance data.
FAQs
Should I run both Google Ads and Facebook Ads?
If you have the budget — yes. They serve different stages of the customer journey and compound when used together. If forced to pick one, choose based on your category’s intent profile.
How long until I see results?
Google Ads can deliver leads within 24 hours of campaign launch. Facebook Ads typically take 7 to 14 days to optimize the targeting. Both require 60 to 90 days to make confident decisions about scale.
Do I need a marketing agency to run ads?
Not strictly. Both platforms have getting-started flows for self-managed campaigns. The catch: agency-managed accounts typically outperform self-managed accounts by 20% to 40% on cost-per-lead, especially as account complexity grows.
What if my budget is under $500 per month?
Below $500, Google Ads is usually the better choice — you can target specific high-intent keywords precisely. Below $300, neither platform delivers reliable results — focus on organic SEO and GMB first.
How do I measure ROI on each?
Conversion tracking is essential. Set up phone call tracking, form submission tracking, and (where possible) revenue attribution. Without conversion tracking, you are guessing.
For most small businesses in 2019, the right answer is “both, with the right ratio for your category.” If you want a hand running a paid media audit on your current spend, request a Frostbite snapshot report — we will pull a free paid media health check within three business days.
Why Google Ads Facebook Matters for Your Business
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